Penn Cambria’s Team Effort Blows by Hickory to Advance

Tagged under: District 10, District 6, Gameday Hub, News, pfn, Playoffs

Phil Myers | November 23, 2024

Saturday afternoon in Kittaning at the Armstrong High School football field, it was chilly and drizzling before the game.  Little did anyone know, especially the Hickory Hornets, but a storm was coming.  This pending storm was the Penn Cambria Panther football team which took the field and rained its will upon Hickory, controlling the game from the start to finish in their convincing 30-7 victory.  That win gives Penn Cambria a date next week in the state 3A semifinals with Avonworth.

After the game PC’s elated head coach Nick Felus said, “First and foremost this group is tough as nails.  They’re so tough, they’re so resilient.  We wanted to play a physical brand of football and we did that on both sides of the ball. The game is won in the trenches.  Two things you got to do in playoff football.  You gotta run the ball and you gotta stop the run.  And we did that today.  We took care of the football as well.  We didn’t turn it over.”

Penn Cambria did play physical football.  They moved the ball, mostly on the ground, consistently for most of the game.  After Hickory’s first possession of the game that resulted in a 57-yard scoring drive, the defense thwarted everything the Hornets threw at them allowing no more points and only 147 more yards.  The Panthers also intercepted two passes and recovered two fumbles winning the turnover battle 4-0.  That is a recipe for success on the football field.

The District Six champs were led by Gavin Harrold who scored three of the Panther four touchdowns.  Unofficially, he ran for 101 yards on 18 carries and caught six passes for 57 more yards.  Coach Felus compared Harrold to Bugs Bunny, “Did you ever see that one cartoon, Bugs on first, Bugs on second, Bugs on third?  That’s Gav.  You know Gav’s a quarterback, Gav’s a receiver, Gav’s a running back, Gav went over and filled up the water bottles.  He’s such a great kid.  He’s such a hard worker.  His football IQ is off the charts.  The work he puts in, enables us to put him in all those situations.”

Gavin Harrold #12 with ball. Thomas Plunkett is #2. Corbin Vinglish is #32.

Penn Cambria sent a message on the first drive of the game when they received the opening kickoff and marched 78 yards to draw first blood.  That possession took 16 plays and chewed up over 7 minutes of clock time.  QB Brady Jones did the honors by running the ball in from the three.  Thomas Plunkett scored the two-point conversion and just like that, Penn Cambria led 8-0.  The unusual thing about that drive was that Penn Cambria converted four third down situations and a fourth and two along the way.  That is imposing your will.

To Hickory’s credit, they did answer with a time-consuming drive of their own.  They went 62 yards in 9 plays, scoring on the last play of the first quarter when Kelvin Morrison ran 6 yards to pay dirt.  Hickory would never really threaten again.  Morrison was much of the Hornet offense as he rushed for 95 yards on 15 carries.  For the game Hickory had 204 yards of offense but 37 of those yards came in the last 55 seconds of the game when the outcome had already been determined.

From there on out Penn Cambria dominated.  They scored on their next possession by going 66 yards in 6 plays and only using less than two minutes of the clock.  Harrold scored his first of three straight TDs on a 4-yard run.  A Jones to Harrold pass gave the Panthers two more points and the 16-7 lead.  There was no more scoring in the first half, although Penn Cambria had the ball at the Hickory 32 when time ran out in the half.

The second half began with the teams’ trading punts.  On PC’s second punt in the third quarter the ball was fumbled by one of the Hornets and recovered by one of the Panthers at the Hickory 38.  It took Coach Felus’s team 7 plays but they put the ball in the end zone on Harrold’s 1-yard run.  Jones ran in the two-point conversion and the score was 24-7 in favor of Penn Cambria.

The Panthers put the nail in the coffin in the fourth when Harrold finished a 50-yard drive with another 1-yard score.  The two-pointer failed and half way through the final quarter Penn Cambria could start to feel the feeling of excitement knowing they would play on.  “You know one of our goals this year was to play on Thanksgiving morning and we get to do that,” said a smiling Gavin Harrold.  “I couldn’t be prouder of how we played today,” he added.

Felus talked about his offense, how the line, the receivers, the running backs blocked so well.  How they grinded out drives and pounded the ball.  But this is what he said about the defense, “A shout out to our defensive coordinator, Sean Davison and our defensive staff.  They’re relentless in their preparation.  We take a lot of pride in our defense and how physical they are.  They were relentless all day.  That’s a good football team.  Coach does a good job.  For us to hold them to 7 points, it’s a huge shout out to our defense, huge!”  Hickory came into the game averaging 41 points a game.

Hickory’s Jamal Calhoun #0 can’t get loose.

The Hornets are the District Ten champions and finish their season with an 11-2 record.  The Penn Cambria Panthers remain unblemished and are now 14-0.

Score by Quarters:

Penn Cambria – 8 8 8 6 – 30

Hickory – 7 0 0 0 – 7

Scoring Summary:

First Quarter:

PC – Brady Jones 3-yard run, (Thomas Plunkett run 2-pt. conversion), 4:57

H – Kelvin Morrison 6-yard run, (Logan Standford PAT), 0:00

Second Quarter:

PC – Gavin Harrold 4-yard run, (Jones to Harrold 2-pt. conversion), 10:04

Third Quarter:

PC – Harrold 1-yard run, (Jones run 2-pt. conversion), 2:34

Fourth Quarter:

PC – Harrold 1-yard run, (2-pt. pass failed), 6:22

Individual Stats:

Rushing: PC – Gavin Harrold 18-101, Thomas Plunkett 16-77, Mason Mento 13-32. Totals: 47-221.  H – Kelvin Morrison 15-95, Zander Telesz 6-18, Jamal Calhoun 1-0. Totals: 22-113.

Passing: PC – Brady Jones 6-10-0, 57 yards, Harrold 0-1-0.  Totals 6-11-0, 57 yards.  H – Zander Telesz 7-20-2, 91 yards.

Receiving: PC – Harrold 6-57.  H – Jadon Phillips 4-37, Trevor Borowicz 2-50, Sebastian Bromley 1-4. Totals: 7-91.

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